Open to Interpretation
by Winter-sama
Summary: Inuyasha’s a god. No. Really. And he has some things that a certain young lady needs to do. Only problem is, she’s got her own ideas on how the universe should REALLY be run. AU. InuKag.
1. Prologue: The Dream

**Author's notes: I'm sorry that this is so very very short. This is my first Inuyasha piece, though I've written other stuff...mostly one-shots (my fear of commitment is strong). A huge part of the inspiration for this piece is the television show Joan of Arcadia, for those of you who know, some of it may seem familiar, but with some very important um....religious? differences. Because this will be Inu/Kag, all you monotheists need to understand that he is A god, not THE God and as such, no religious toes to step on, so to speak, so please do not flame me on any religious level, it's called FICTION for a reason.  
**  
Disclaimer: I think the world will be a much better place when everyone comes to realize that Inuyasha really DOES belong to me!! No! Really! I bought the rights ::nods enthusiastically:: Ok fine...I'll share with Rumiko Takahashi...but she has to give him back when she's done!!! Seriously...all I got's is my sister's plushy that I stole and a coupla loose pennies drifting around my jean pockets with some lint. ;;  
Anything based on the premise of Joan of Arcadia belongs to Barbara Hall and not to me. Remember kiddies, however, this is NOT a crossover!

**Prologue****  
June 18th, 2004****  
  
** It all started on my first day of school. We had just moved to Tokyo so that my mom could help out my granddad with the upkeep of the family shrine. I think if I had known the insanity that would begin on that day, I might have just slept in...

* * *

"Kagome." 

A young lady with long, black hair looked up sharply toward the voice that was calling her name. Looking around, she saw that she was standing in the middle of a grassy field, the sky overhead was dark and threatening and the air around her had that eerie, still feeling to it, like just before a storm. She looked down at herself and realized that she was dressed in her school uniform; not her old one, but her new one, the one that she had never worn yet.

"Kagome."

She looked around a second time, trying to find the source of the voice, and yet, seeing no one or nothing but the field in which she stood and the heavy sky above her head.

"Kagome."

This time, she spun around quickly in order to see the person calling her, but just as before, she saw only fields and looming clouds.

"Who's there?" she called, mad at the slight quiver in her voice. The silence was her answer. By now, Kagome was beginning to get just a little irritated. Hands on her hips, stomping her foot like a petulant child, she demanded, "I know you're out there and this isn't funny! Who's there?!"

"Kagome."

The voice was directly behind her. She spun around quickly to find herself nose to nose with...with...well she really wasn't quite sure. Silver hair, golden eyes and...puppy ears??? Distracted by the sight in front of her, she didn't even notice that the force of turning around had knocked her off-balance. Well no one was more surprised than her to feel the ground hit her bottom. With a startled squeak she realized that she was looking up at a very, well, beautiful would be the word to describe him, strange, but beautiful boy about her own age.

"Who ARE you??" she asked, looking up at him from her new comfortable spot on the ground.

"Kagome," was his only answer. Suddenly the air began to be filled with a shrill squealing noise. Slamming her hands over her ears, she looked up at the boy in bewilderment, shocked by the sudden sadness in his eyes as he slowly turned to walk away with a small wave as the shrilling got louder.

"Stop!" she yelled, both to the departing boy and the loud shrieking that was filling her head. Squeezing her eyes shut against the pain, rocking on her heels again and again begging the awful noise to stop.

Suddenly, with a gasp, she opened her eyes to find...her bedroom??? Next to her, the alarm clock continued to shriek loudly.

"Shut it off!! For the love of god, Kagome!" a young boy's voice yelled through the wall, banging the wall in frustration. Dazed and confused, she managed to turn over and heave the offending object against the wall, probably with a little more force than was necessary. It stopped, probably forever. But that really didn't matter to the now more than half-awake teenager sitting on her bed enjoying the silence.

"It was just a dream..." she muttered to herself, before getting up to get ready for school. "What was with the wave?? How annoying..." she mused on her way to the shower. If only she had realized then just how much she was going to learn to hate that little wave.

* * *

Just a quicky...sorry it's not longer, Chapter 1 will be out soon. Lemme know if it's worth continuing. Thanx for reading!! 


	2. Chapter 1: Open to Possibility

Disclaimer: I don't own him. Not ever going to. Same disclaimers as the prologue for pretty much the rest of the story.  
  
Just a quick digression before I actually start the story...funniest radio commercial ever...  
  
Guy1: Dude, great vintage t-shirt

Guy2: Yeah, Dude, got it from a 24 pack of Molson, it says "Cottage Country Cougar"

Guy 1: ....I wonder what it would be like to meet a 'cougar'

(IMAGINING)

Cougar (in a hoarse cigarette-voice): Hey there sweetie, my name's Eileen

Guy2 (slightly freaked): Hey...you didn't even take out that cigarette to put on your lipstick...

Cougar: Nope.  
  
Hehehehehehe  
  
Hmmmm....maybe you actually have to hear it for it to be really funny...maybe I'm just nuts...ah well...(been out in the great Canadian wilderness by myself for a week...maybe it's starting to get to me...)

Quick Shout-outs

**Rusted Locks: **Thanx so much for your review...I swear I bounced off the walls for an hour, I was so excited. And I totally agree with you about the glomping!!

**Rozefire and Luna Chick/ Sailor Scribe**: I know I'm not great a leaving reviews but these two authors have been a huge inspiration to me and I highly recommend them to anyone!

**Chapter 1 - Open to possibility**

**June 21st, 2004  
**  
After finishing her shower, Kagome quickly donned her new school uniform, which reminded her again of her dream. Shaking off the funny feeling that was beginning to settle in her stomach, she gave her hair one last brush before heading downstairs for breakfast with her family. Her mother, grandfather and brother, Souta, were already seated at the table munching down pancakes.  
"'Bout time you decided to get up," Souta mumbled out between bites, taking no care whatsoever in trying not to show all the mashed up pancake- gunk that was in his mouth.  
Kagome retaliated by swatting him up the head as she walked by to help herself to breakfast, inadvertently causing Souta to land face-first into his stack of sticky goodness. Face covered in maple syrup he glared at her from his seat.  
"And that's why you broke your stupid alarm clock again. You're so violent."  
"Kagome!"  
"Sorry, Mom," she apologized quickly, thinking that she was being scolded at for hitting brother, "I didn't mean to hit him quite so hard."  
"No, not that," her mom replied, "Souta deserved that--"  
Souta aimed his glare at his mom now.  
"What?" she asked innocently, "Anyways, I meant about the alarm clock. Honey, that's the 11th one this month, and school hasn't even started yet."  
"Oh that, don't worry, I'll replace it," she paused thoughtfully, "and the next one too. Besides, I was having a really weird dream."  
"Betcha it was about a cute boy," Souta teased.  
"Souta!"  
"What? She's 17 now, that's all she ever thinks about."  
"Yeah well your only 12 and you still think girls have cooties."  
"Mom?" both Kagome and Souta turned to her in shock.  
"I can't believe you said that, Mom," Kagome said shaking her head in disbelief as Souta renewed glaring at his mother.  
"So, Kagome, who was the cute boy?" her mom brushed her off.  
Rolling her eyes at her mom's antics, Kagome cleared off her dishes, grabbed her bag and left to catch the bus. Stepping off the school bus, Kagome looked up in awe at her new high school. It was much bigger than her old one. But then again, you're in the big city now, she thought to herself, squaring her shoulders, raising her chin up and walking proudly forward. No one would make the mistake of thinking her a country bumpkin! And for about a grand total of three seconds, her plan worked fairly well, until she walked right into something. Something big and hard, knocking her flat on her butt. Overwhelmed by a sense of deja-vue, Kagome looked up expecting to see the strange boy from her dream but found herself staring into the most beautiful deep violet eyes she had ever seen. Don't be ridiculous girl, she chided herself, it was just a dream after all.  
Suddenly remembering both her manners and her situation, she jumped up quickly apologizing about as profusely as she was blushing, "Gomen ne, I'm such a clutz," she muttered quickly, taking in the person she had bumped into for the first time. She was shocked to see that aside from black hair and purple eyes, he looked just like the boy from my dream! But that can't be! I'm being ridiculous. I must've just seen him around town when we were moving in and somehow last night's midnight snack of three day old pizza gave him cute, adorable, fuzzy, doggy-- She slapped herself in the forehead to stop her mental rambling when she noticed that the young man had been in the middle of saying something.  
"I'm sorry, I'm such a mush brain. What were you saying?"  
The boy's eyes glittered with mischief. "I said, not to worry, Kagome. I know that you've been tripping over your feet since you hit puberty," he answered with a small amount of mirth in his voice.  
"I beg your pardon?" Kagome asked her face contorting into a rather unattractive look of shock and embarrassment. How does he know my name?!?  
"You're right," he continued on, not really paying attention to her anymore, "I really should have done something to fix that by now, but really, it has been such a source of entertainment to me--"  
"Excuse me?!" Kagome cut him off, equal parts freaked out and irritated that the boy standing in front of her, talking about her as though he'd known her his entire life. "Who ARE you??" she demanded, again, feeling as though she were still stuck in her dream, and not liking the feeling one little bit. She looked down in horror to realize that she again, had her hands on her hips and had just stomped her foot like a petulant child.  
"Oh I'm terribly sorry Kagome," he replied in a voice that said he was anything but, "my name's Inuyasha, and I'm a god."  
Blink. She couldn't help it. She'd tried, she really had, but it escaped before she could stop it. She let out a rather unladylike snort of laughter before choking out, "Oh that's rich, Mr. Modest. Is that the pick-up line you use on all of the new girls?" She was about to continue with a roll of her eyes when she noticed that the boy in front of her wasn't laughing with her. "Oh come on. What kind of idiot do you take me for?" "Now Kagome, my dear, don't be silly, you and I both know that your not an idiot. Well I suppose there was that one test you failed in the second grade, but I suppose you worked through that one well enough." "I--" "And you know," he continued on as though she weren't even there anymore, "You were right when you told your mom that that teacher had it out for you- -" "Alright, stop!" Kagome all but yelled right into the irritating boy in front of her, who, at the moment, was doing a very good job of freaking her out. "This is a just a little too weird for me, so I'm just gonna turn around, walk away and we're gonna pretend that this conversation never happened and that I never met you. Okei? Okei," she turned on her heel with the full intention of walking away.  
"Kagome."  
The voice stopped her in her tracks. Couldn't be. It was a DREAM. As in, not real!  
"Was it really a dream Kagome?"  
"How did you?" she gaped at him for probably the upteenth time that day.  
"And how did I know your name? Or that you're a huge clutz? Or how you failed that math test in the second grade?" the boy continued, countering question for question. "And no, I'm not some weird freaky stalker that's been after you since you were at least 8 years old, so you can stop that train of thought right there." At this point all the poor girl could do was stare. There just weren't any words. None. "There are some things in the world that you just have to take on faith. I am a god, Kagome, and I have some things that I need you to do," he finished as though the girl in front of him wasn't currently doing a great impression of a fish, trying desperately to find something to say.  
"God?" she finally chocked out incredulously, "As in, God?" Inuyasha smirked at her. "As in, Tower of Babel, Ten commandments, burning bush, split the Red Sea, God?"  
Inuyasha's smirk never wavered. "Yes and no," he answered ambiguously, "I am A god, not THE God, as you would understand it. Gods and the universe as you humans understand it is rather, well, restricted. Too little faith, and far too much curiosity," he tsked tsked, shaking his head.  
Feeling her own head starting to swim, Kagome quickly found the nearest picnic table and sat down before her legs gave out on her. Head in her hands, she muttered under her breath "Why me?"  
"Because you're open to possibility, Kagome," he replied cryptically.  
"Possibility for what??" she asked, feeling weary.  
"You'll see in time. I'll be around, Kagome. I'll let this sink in for now," he said as he walked away with a little back-handed wave, which to Kagome, seemed more like a strange shooing motion than a cordial goodbye.  
"Wait! Come back here! You can't just say things like that and then walk away from me!!"  
Suddenly the school bell rang announcing the beginning of classes. With a curse at being late on her first day, Kagome quickly grabbed her bag. Turning back to where Inuyasha had been, she saw nothing but an empty street.

* * *

End of Chapter 1 

A little bit longer than the prologue and a little bit more to go on. Honestly. If you guys don't think that this is worth continuing, lemme know and I'll stop this torture. It will get funnier later on, and the rating will go up. Just putting the foundations in place before the building blocks, so to speak.

As far as reviews go....heck, I'm ecstatic when I get one, so really, I'm easy to please and I know that there are alot more ppl reading then there are reviewing, and that's enough for me (though I by no means discourage them!! )


	3. Chapter 2: Song and Dance

I'm back!! Happy Canada Day everyone!!!! :)

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**Chapter 2 - Song and Dance**

****

"Tadaima," Kagome muttered under her breath, exhausted when she got home from her first day of classes.

"Hi hon," her mom called from the kitchen as Kagome trudged by on her way up to her room, shoulders slumped, bag dragging on the floor. "How was your first day of school?"

Using what small amount of energy she had left in her body, Kagome turned her head to level her mother with a look that said 'don't even go there,' before she continued on wordlessly to her bedroom. After trudging down the seemingly endless hallway to her bedroom, she collapsed on her bed in a mess of limbs and schoolwork and bedsheets, content not to move for at least the next twelve hours. Sadly, the universe had other plans.

"Hello Kagome."

"EEEYAH!" she shrieked in surprise, "How did you get in here?!" she demanded upon seeing the same boy from this morning standing in her bedroom.

No.

Actually she was wrong. It wasn't the boy from this morning; it was the silver-haired, doggy-eared boy from her dream, in all his smirking glory.

"What?" he asked pretending to be offended, "No hello?"

"No," she snapped tiredly, "No helloes for figments of my over- active, sleep-deprived imagination. Nope. None. So go away and let me sleep," she finished, lying back down on her bed and rolling over to face the wall.

"I'm not your imagination, Kagome."

"La la la la la," she sang under her breath plugging her ears, "not listening."

"Kagome," the boy tried again, impatience beginning to show in his voice. "Kagome, please turn around and look at me."

"My, these old houses certainly have such creaky walls," she continued on as though ignoring the boy's very existence. Apparently, the boy himself had had enough of this particular game. She thought she would never be able to breathe normally again when she suddenly felt a clawed hand comb through her hair and down her back.

"That was pretty real, now wasn't it?" he asked seriously.

Kagome finally rolled over, convinced that she had finally completely lost her mind and decided to face her new found insanity with a certain degree of acceptance. What she ended up facing were two pools of molten gold, framed by the most beautiful face she had ever seen in her entire life. She was only partially aware of the hand that was still stroking her hair as the boy himself sat perched on the edge of her bed.

"Why won't you just leave me alone?" she sighed in defeat.

With a face that was entirely serious and completely devoid of its usual smirk, he answered, "Because I can't do that. Things need to be done, and you're the one that needs to do them."

"But, why me?"

"I told you already this morning, you're open to possibility."

"Possibility for what?" she asked, her frustration beginning to mount again, "a nice padded room because I like to talk to my imaginary friend, though I must say," she continued on, eyes trailing up his head to his ears, "I never thought I had it in me to come up with something as adorable as those."

Leaning his head down so that her seeking hand could reach the precious white appendages, he answered, "The ears are entirely mine, thank you, due in no part whatsoever to your admittedly over-active imagination," he paused while his eyes rolled up in his head in pleasure from her ministrations, "though I'm glad you like them."

Reluctantly taking her hands off the very real-feeling ears, Kagome could've sworn she'd her a disappointed whimper.

"So what am I supposed to call you?" she asked, having decided to go along with it for the time being. After all, those ears had certainly felt real. So had the hand that had suddenly stopped stroking her hair as she sat up in her bed. She suddenly found that she missed its soothing motions.

_Excuse me?? What was she thinking??_

She hadn't even decided if she was going to believe that he was real yet, she certainly shouldn't be enjoying imaginary clawed hands running through her long hair.

"-yasha."

"Huh?" she started out of her train of thought for the second time that day.

"I said that my name is Inu Yasha," the boy, who now had a name, replied with a hint of a mischievous grin returning to his features.

"Inu Yasha, eh?" she tried out the name, "well I suppose you must be real then, because I don't think I could think up a name like that with even the highest fever," she paused, trying to put together everything that had happened to her so far today into some kind of sense. "So you are a god, and this is what you look like?"

Inu Yasha nodded.

"And this morning at school..."

"...was my alternate form. I certainly can't go around looking like this all the time. People would begin to think they were hallucinating or something," he answered with a grin.

"Heaven forbid," she rolled her eyes, "I suppose you thought you'd reserve that special honour for little 'ole me. How kind."

"I certainly try my best," his grin got bigger.

"So you wouldn't mind answering a few questions then, right?" she asked dryly.

Sighing dramatically as though she had asked him for the stars from the sky he replied, "I can't guarantee that I can answer all your questions, but ask away."

"I thought that you knew everything," she snarked.

"I don't know everything," he replied smartly, "omniscience is a human invention. I do, however, know everything that concerns you. Let me put it to you this way, there isn't a very big difference between 'can' and 'won't', it'll be up to you to decide which it is."

"Fine," she muttered in defeat. "I'll start with an easy one then. Why the hell is there so much freaking homework on the first freaking day of school!??!"

* * *

It was a few hours later as Kagome sat on her bed trying to digest all the information that Inu Yasha had told her. He'd left only a few minutes ago, simply walking out her bedroom door with a dismissive little wave as though it was the most natural thing in the world. 

Hearing her brother bounding up the stairs, Kagome had rushed to the door, her mind whirling with how she was going to explain the presence of the strange boy in her hallway, only to discover that he had disappeared without a trace, leaving the poor girl to wonder if she hadn't, in fact, imagined the entire encounter. But remembering the feeling of his clawed hand running through her hair, Kagome found herself unable to discount the events of the last few hours as a hallucination.

Turning back on her heel, she decided to just dismiss it all for the time being in order to get at least some of her homework done before bed.

* * *

The next day at school found Kagome hiding out in the music room during her lunch break. In all actuality, it had been years since she had indulged herself in any type of music, be it playing, or singing. She didn't really have any particular reason for quitting, one day, she just stopped. But here she was, years later, sitting in front of the beat up old piano, plinking away at random notes as her mind wandered back, again and again to her conservation with Inu Yasha the night before. 

'_What did he mean?_' she wondered, her index finger idly landing on F#.

'_Open to possibility? How am I open to possibility?_'

Her hand traveled from F to B and then to G, creating a musical pattern of harmonics and counterpoints, slowly remembering the motions.

"You should have never stopped playing."

A slurry of disharmony filled the room suddenly as Kagome jumped, having thought she was alone. '_Of course, you're not ever really alone anymore, are you?_' she thought dryly.

"I really wish you would give me a little bit of warning before you would pop out of nowhere," she grumped aloud to the now dark-haired Inu Yasha.

Ignoring her reply, he repeated, "You were quite good. Even I never really understood why you suddenly abandoned it."

Feeling as though she were being reprimanded, she replied perhaps shorter than she should have, "I don't know. I just did."

She sighed, slightly regretting her harsh tone. "I don't know," she shrugged, "one day, whatever it was that pushed, or inspired me, or whatever...it just wasn't there."

A slightly concerned look crossed Inu Yasha's face and he fell silent in seeming contemplation for a time before he spoke again. "So why are you here now, then?"

"I..." she started, realizing she didn't really know that herself, "it just felt like this was where I needed to be right now."

"Play something now," he nodded at the keyboard, smiling slightly. Without hesitation, Kagome complied to his request, idly wondering at her own complicity before her fingers found the notes and the melody of her youth began to fill the air again for the first time in years. She didn't know the song, or where it came from. Musically speaking it was a simply alternance of the F# minor key, moving from F# to D to E back up to A, repeating the pattern in endless variations, but it was these variations and alternances that evoked both feelings of sorrow and joy in both the player and the audience. For some reason, today it rang more beautiful in her ears than it had ever sounded before and Kagome wondered for the first time why she had ever stopped playing.

Suddenly, the bell rang signaling the end of her lunch break. Her eyes snapping open, Kagome looked around the room finding it empty once again.

* * *

Unbeknownst to her, however, outside the door of the classroom sat a young boy of about 13 years of age with a single tear sliding down his cheek. The beauty of the melody had moved something deep inside of him. Something that he thought had died a long time ago.

Returning to his locker, the boy placed all of his books, which he had been bringing home so that his mother would not have to, back inside, and with the first small smile in months, walked to his next class thinking that, perhaps, today was not such a good day to die.

Kagome would never know that her song had returned a small amount of hope to a child who thought he had given up.

* * *

Sitting on the roof in his true form, Inu Yasha felt his heart lifted by the resurgence of hope in the heart of the boy. Kagome may never know, but he did. 

Soon, however, his heart became heavy again as he thought about the reasons for Kagome's abandonment of music. Music was a part of her very soul; he had assured that at the time of her creation. Music was truth at its very purist, and truth was hope.

He didn't understand.

She had been destined to bring hope back to a world that desperately needed it. Music was hope. How was this girl supposed to propagate hope when she herself seemed to have lost it?

Sighing, Inu Yasha tilted his head back as though looking for the Universe for answers that he already knew weren't there.

* * *

End of Chapter 2 I hope I managed to give y'all a lot to think and ponder on. Sorry the chapter took so long. Summer job and all, I'm sure you all understand ( Anywho. Let me know what you think. Any suggestions would be happily accepted. 


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